matrimony as an aid to feeble nature and chiefly for the purpose of
procreation. But when lust in this manner has gained the upper hand,
all commandments, those that go before and that follow, are ruthlessly
broken and dishonored. Parental honor becomes insecure; men do not
shrink from doing murder; from alienating property, speaking false
testimony, etc.

28. The word _jiru_, "saw," does not merely signify "to view," but "to
view with pleasure and enjoyment." This meaning often occurs in the
psalms, for instance: "Mine eye also hath seen my desire on mine
enemies," Ps 92, 11; that is, shall with pleasure see vengeance
executed upon my enemies. The meaning here is that, after turning
their eyes from God and his Word, they turned them, filled with lust,
upon the daughters of men. The sequence is unerring that, from the
violation of the first table, men rush to the violation of the second.
After despising God they despised also the laws of nature and, as they
pleased, they married whom they chose.

29. These are rather harsh words, and yet it is my opinion that lust
continued hitherto within certain limits, inasmuch as they neither
committed incest with their mothers, as later the inhabitants of
Canaan, nor polluted themselves with the vice of the Sodomites. Moses
confines his charge to their casting aside the legal trammels set by
the patriarchs and recognizing in their matrimonial alliances no law
but that of lust, selecting only as passion directed and against the
will of the parents.

30. It seems the patriarchs had strictly forbidden to contract
alliances with the offspring of Cain, just as, later, the Jews could
not lawfully mingle with the Canaanites. Though there are not wanting
those who write that incestuous marriages existed before the flood,
blood-relationship being held to be no barrier, I yet infer from the
fact that Peter has extolled the old world, that such incestuous
atrocities did not exist at that time, but that the sin of the ancient
world consisted rather in men marrying whom they pleased, and as many
wives from the Cainites as they chose, ignoring parental authority and
controlled alone by passion. It is, therefore, a harsh word--"All
which they chose."

31. I have shown, on various occasions, that the two generations, or
churches, of Adam and Cain were separate. For, as Moses clearly
states, Adam expelled the murderer from his association. Without
doubt, therefore, Adam also exhorted his offsp